


For Those of The Five Deaths

by sgtlegendkiller



Category: Half Life (Off Screen Connection), Jurassic Park - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, InGen | International Genetics Incorporated (Jurassic Park), Isla Nublar (Jurassic Park), Isla Sorna (Jurassic Park)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21582016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgtlegendkiller/pseuds/sgtlegendkiller
Summary: Even before the fall of the original Jurassic Park, the legacy of John Hammond and the Las Cinco Muertes had quite the prolific effect on the world after InGen began their work there and on the infamous Isla Nublar. In this story, we follow Danielle Arnold, an Isla Sorna Paleo-Vetrenarian, as she survives the events of the islands. Mild swearing, Occasional violence.Story starts in 1989 and goes well into the mid 2010s to the Jurassic World era
Relationships: Velociraptor/Human (Jurassic Park)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Not As It Should Have Been/ Miss October

SGTLEGENDKILLER

‘For Those of The Five Deaths’

A Jurassic Park Fanfiction

Prologue   
_“Not As It Should Have Been”_

Danielle slid her shoulder firmly against the wet concrete utility house’s exterior wall. She did what she could to ease her breathing as she shivered from another rush of heavy rain and wind; the storm had only gotten worse than when she had left the InGen Compound. It was bad enough that she had to be out in a heavy storm at several minutes from the Compound, but after the fact they found that most of the electrical fences were failing all around Isla Sorna. She had been out around the dinosaurs plenty of times before, but in much better conditions. The worst part was that the main generator for the island’s fences just so happened to be located near a series of carnivore paddocks. She shivered from another brief gust and looked down at the shotgun in her bare hands, a Remington 870 loaded with 12 gauge slugs, and sighed to try to relax slightly.

_‘C’mon Dani.’_ She thought _‘50 more feet and you’re there. Then you can get back to Nicole.’_

She shook her head slightly, and with her trembling cold fingers, she snapped the shotgun up around the corner of the wall she had been pressed against; she wasn’t about to start taking chances.

Danielle moved around the corner, seeing nothing around the sights of her shotgun in her peripherals. After seeing the coast was clear, she lowered her gun and took quick strides down the dirt lane past the utility house towards the small metal stand that housed the large breaker for the large fence generator. She would have to get the generator back up to make sure all of the fences stayed on so everyone could at least partially feel safe. She had only volunteered to venture forth after completing her headcount because she was so familiar with the island outside of the InGen compound. This was largely due to her nearly constant active studies on the dinosaurs and their behavior out in their regional paddocks.

‘ _Almost there… halfway there… only 20 feet to-’_ Her thoughts were completely cut short as the dark outline of a medium sized carnivore walked into view around the storage housing near the generator. Danielle jerked to the side and slid into the space between the utility and storage buildings.

“Shit.” She cursed under her breath as she clutched her shotgun tightly to her chest. She tried her damndest to keep her breathing quiet and controlled, her mind raced at a thousand miles per hour; what could she do about a loose carnivore?! She gave a hushed exhale, she decided to carefully peek around the corner. Luckily, due to the rain and dark conditions, she was able to look around the corner without being noticed. She could clearly see the carnivore with its head reared up and sniffing as to scan the area. The red glow of the generator’s tower glinted over the dinosaur’s silhouette, clearly displaying the ridges above each of the animal’s eyes. An unmistakable trait of an Allosaurus. She sighed with a slight sense of relief. As little as it would help her relax there could only be at most two of those. InGen had only successfully made two of them out of the three batches that they had tried. The genome didn’t quite seem to mix right for some reason. The Allosaurus gave a sharp rumbling noise as its nose picked up the scent of a Human in the area. Danielle’s mind began to race again; she would have to think fast.

As she listened, she could hear the Allosaurus taking slow strides towards where she was. Not wanting anything to do with the creature, she quietly made her way around towards the rear of the building. She moved around the backside of the cement walls towards the side closest to the generator. Keeping a careful eye and an ear out for the other potential Allosaurus, which she was happy to not find around the corner. Once she had gotten around the building, she glanced around the opposite corner from where she had been to see the carnivore with its neck bent in between the buildings as it followed her smell. She decided quickly to take her slim chance. Silently she lifted her shotgun around the corner of the building and took aim at the distracted Allosaurus. Danielle cleared her mind to focus as she sternly lined up the bead sight to its mid front torso, knowing exactly where its vital organs were. 

She then hesitated; she knew that the creature, much like the rest of the dinosaurs on the island, was most likely agitated by the storm. While she would rather see the carnivore live, if it saw her it would no doubt attack her. Despite everything she would rather have done to avoid this encounter, she had little time or chance to do what needed to be done. She swallowed and tightened the shotgun against her shoulder. She then held her breath and once the pulsing glow from the tower returned, she fired.

The hotly loaded 12 Gauge slug fiercely struck the Allosaurus right above and behind its left shoulder blade. Danielle could see puff of red spray as the round punched through the other side of the dinosaur. The Allosaurus gave a startled yelp in pain as it recoiled to the side from the slug. It gave a wheezing growl as it frantically turned itself to look in her direction before Danielle racked the gun and fired again, this time aiming for the dinosaurs head. The Allosaurus gave a final sharp rumble as its body fell into the mud under it with a sharp hiss.

Danielle racked the shotgun again as she was hit with a quick wave of emotions. While she was thrilled to have been able to down the Allosaurus so easily, she soon felt a mixture of sorrow and regret; she never had wanted to end the life of such a beautiful creature. She was a Paleo Veterinarian; this was not what someone with her title was supposed to handle. With a respectful nod to the now dead dinosaur she gave a quick word of her regret and turned her attention back to the situation at hand. She wished she had time for alternatives or even a proper goodbye, but she understood the gravity of the situation; she _had_ to get this generator back up for everyone else’s sake. She shook herself and went quickly to the generator’s breaker shack. With a flashlight and a quick read of the large panel box, she found the correct procedure to reset the generator’s systems. She could hear a flurry of electrical hums and crackles as the area seemed to come back fully online with the power. The flood lights of the area even had come on, hurting her eyes slightly for a moment. It was definitely a welcome change from the dark and cold island forests. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t the only one to benefit from the now illuminated generator station. Just now walking around the furthest side of the utility housing building… was the second Allosaurus.

Danielle turned and saw the carnivore at the same time it had seen her. It also only took the creature a moment to notice the body of her sister Allosaurus lying dead in the mud between her and the Human. With an upset roar the now enraged dinosaur lowered its head as it began to very quickly advance towards Danielle. With a rushed curse, Danielle quickly took her shotgun and snapped it up at the now charging dinosaur. She fired the shotgun as swift and as precise as she could at the dinosaur as it very quickly closed the 50 ft. distance. The dinosaur, after taking at least three of the remaining six shots that Danielle had loaded into the shotgun, was close enough to try to lunge for her. Danielle by this point, running out of options, dove towards the closest wall of the storage house at what must have been the last second. Her lucky footing and nimble move easily saved her life as the Allosaurus was unable to stop itself from slipping in the mud as it tried to correct course to follow, leaving it flailing and sliding on the ground for several seconds. Danielle made it to the wall and desperately fumbled with the wet shotgun shells in the shell rail on the side of the shotgun, her fingers frantically trying to reload the weapon before the Allosaurus struggled to get back up to its feet. 

As the Allosaurus managed to nearly stand on pained legs, Danielle had managed to load three shells into her shotgun. Before the dinosaur could fully stand and charge at her again, she took quick aim and fired again, hitting the dinosaur in the side near its left hip. The Allosaurus gave a loud bellow as it trembled and fell back into the mud, now with one entire leg unusable. With the carnivore down, Danielle racked the weapon and watched the creature as it sort of just stayed still, whining and wailing out as if it knew it was finished. This of course made Danielle heavily in the heart. With a quick but emotional sigh, she took a step closer to the downed Allosaurus.

“Damn it!” Danielle spat out as she lifted the shotgun and aimed it at the center of the dinosaurs head. “I’m sorry, sweetheart… it’s not your fault…” As crazy as it would have sounded, she truly felt for the creature. She had only watched most of these dinosaurs grow from infancy, and now she was ending the life of several of them. She didn’t like how this all felt. “...You were perfect in every way… I’m sorry...” She said as the thing looked up at her with deep amber colored eyes. After a moment of exchanging stares Danielle pulled the trigger and put the animal to rest.

-~~-

Back in the main facility bunker underneath the control building, there sat several men around a few computer screens and a well-lit table of a map of the island. Harold Finch, the Security Director of the island looked down onto the table map with tight lips. He looked over at the Facility Director to his right, Tim Knocks, as the man blew a soft cloud of cigarette smoke over the table. This was a much younger corporate driven man who seemed to worry about the dollar sign a little too much. In stressful times such as these, he was known to being very short tempered and rather demanding of those around him. Tim had ordered a headcount of all the dinosaurs on the island before the storm had reached Isla Sorna and was adamant that the team needed to then head to the generator facility in charge of the paddock fence power. A series of lightning strikes had caused the fence system to surge and the system needed to be physically reset. All in the same night as this storm, they had lost communications with Isla Nublar and what few staff was left their from their island preview they were hosting. Both islands were seemingly troubled with problems this night. It was all a bit too hectic for everyone.

“Tim… We lost both of the Allosaurus…” Danielle’s voice came through the radio on the desk next to Tim. Even over the fuzzy radio, Harold could hear the sadness in her voice.

Tim looked down at the radio with an annoyed sour grimace. He didn’t have the patience for such unimportant information now. He flicked the final ash from his cigarette and took the radio, lifting it near his mouth. “Have you reset the fence generator yet?” He asked starkly as he ran his fingers through his slicked back hair, wanting results more than anything else.

There was an obvious pause on Danielle’s end. “...Yes… it should be coming up now…”  
  
“Good. Just wait a second until it comes up on our end.” Tim told her as he glanced up at whoever was running the computer in charge of the external systems outside of the InGen compound. After a few moments and a series of flashing lights, the guy at the terminal gave a thumbs up. “Alright. We have the fences back up across the island now. Now get your ass back here, Ms. Arnold.” He told her rather coldly before setting the radio back down loudly on the table.

Harold watched Tim for several seconds. In all his years of dealing with InGen he was never amazed at just what kind of assholes the company would hire. Usually the employees were spectacular and star struck, as John Hammond would want, but every once in a while they would get a sour person. He guessed it was hard to get decent management hires on an island thousands of miles from the United States. 

“Give me that damned thing.” Harold finally grumbled lowly at Tim, who shot him quite the harsh look in retort, not having the balls to open his mouth to talk back to his elders. “If you can’t handle your attitude then you don’t get the radio.” He spat before clearing his throat. “Danielle. This is Harold. I am sorry about the Allosaurs’… I am sure it came down to you or them. You are doing fantastic work, but I need you to relax and get back here safely… Is that understood?” He told her, giving her a slight pep talk. “I’ll start some fresh coffee and get some towels around for you both.”

“Thank you, sir…” Danielle said back with some feedback from a gust of wind.

“Let us know if anything else goes wrong.” He told her. “Finch out.” He sighed and looked down at the map. The girls would have a rough drive back if this storm continued getting worse. 

Harold had almost barely noticed the scowling look that Tim was giving him.   
  
  


“What is it?”

“Oh nothing…” Tim waved his hand about. “I was just wondering if you wanted to take a break and cook them some brownies or some warm soup for them before they get back.” 

Finch gave him a firm glare. “That is enough of that, Tim.”  
  
“We have more important things to worry about other than those two. They fixed the fences and that is what was needed.... Now we all should be in the clear.”

Harold chewed at the inside of his cheek for a moment, this bastard was clearly out of his league and trying to start shit. Harold had just about enough of it. “Watch it, young man.” Harold said half threatening as he pointed a firm finger at Tim before he walked from the table for the nearby common area where everyone else was staying. The moral was quickly dropping, and Harold knew it. They had been on lock down for a few hours now in observation of the monsoon but it was only getting worse. There was only so many VHS tapes for the television in the room and the people with them had already grown tired of the pair of chess sets that were in there. The bunkers were equipped with what was necessary; being food, water, and other items, they were lucky enough to have the TV to watch. Hell, if it got so desperate there was a deck of cards on standby. Harold prepared a second fresh pot of coffee for Danielle and Nicole. He just hoped they would be back soon. _They should be at least._

Harold elected for a cup of what was left of the pot from an hour or so earlier before returning to the control area of the bunker with Tim and all of the computers. He could only imagine this being what the commander’s deck of a submarine would look like; it was damn near claustrophobic enough to feel as such. Harold stepped over to one of the men at the computer terminals overlooking several cameras that were still live around the facility. He blew over his coffee as his eyes glanced over the screen at each of the feeds. It was mostly exterior cameras showing heavy pixelated rain on the top of the screen with a line of other boxes of some empty interiors from around the facility while the center of the screen went through a rotation of each view in a larger screen box… 

_‘It’s called a ‘window,’ sir.’_ He shook his head as he remembered the words of one of the computer techs trying to explain this computer lingo to him. 

The main camera view changed after a few seconds in the rotation to show the long term holding paddock of one of the labs on the edge of the InGen compound. Inside the paddock was a lone Raptor that had been plucked from the batch that had been sent off to Isla Nublar. Something had gone askew with it earlier when it was young, and so it was put aside by itself for research and study. The specific reasoning was something that escaped Harold’s mind at the current time, but it was a dinosaur that Danielle had been working with for well over a year and a half. While he didn't remember much of the thing other than he knew she had affectionately named the thing ‘Bean.’ On the screen the dinosaur was huddled under a bush watching the walls and roof of the holding pen, clearly upset by the storm.

“Poor thing…” Harold muttered to himself. 

The radio on the table crackled as Danielle began to come through. “Hey… The main road is blocked. We need an alternative…” Despite the news she sounded better in spirit since the last time she had checked in.

Harold made his way over to the table and snatched before Tim could reach over for it. He shot him a dirty look and clicked the button on the receiver. “What happened?” 

Danielle gave a sigh. “There is a bunch of trees and stuff laying all over the road. There is too much to move.”

“Alright…. Alright…” He thought as he looked down at the illuminated map. “Where are you now?”

There was a slight pause, obvious as Danielle worked it out. “Somewhere between sector 8 and 5... Between the Carno and Large herbivore paddocks…” The radio cut out for a second. “...Right before the pinch point.”

Harold had followed their path with his finger as she spoke. “Alright…” he said, his eyes darting around for options carefully on the map. “There is another route through a maintenance bypass that goes through the Long-Neck paddock... back in sector 13 where you got the head count earlier.”

“Oh… Shit. I had forgotten about that.” Danielle grumbled through the radio, sounding overwhelmed.

“That’s OK. It is a bit of backtracking, but that trail leads right back to the main road into the Compound. You know the trail.  
  
“Yeah… I do.” At this point the radio seemed to click slightly on Danielle’s end as if it changed hands before another voice came through.

“Hey. Can you verify that the fences are _actually_ back up?” It was Nicole Walker, one of the Security guards under Harold. She had done a decent amount of close work with Danielle. “Because the indicator lights aren’t on.”

Harold looked over at Tim. “Check on that.”

Tim gave a sigh of protest but did as he was told. He quickly stepped over to the appropriate person to check. “Which one? There is like 20 sets of fences.” Tim commented. He was the Faculty director. Whatever happened outside of the compound was typically not his thing to care about.

Harold shook his head. “Should be right on the monitor… Paddock A12.”

Tim leaned back over the computer man’s shoulder to look only to a moment later look back towards Harold. “Uhm... It’s showing that they're off.”

Harold’s mind panicked slightly from this development. Danielle had already told them that three of the four Carnotaurus in that paddock had ganged up on the runt of the group in agitation from the storm when she was doing her headcount that Tim had ordered her to do originally. Suddenly, the sound of a deafening roar and a metallic clang was heard over the radio. Nicole, who had been holding the receiver button, had dropped the radio of the Humvee and stopped broadcasting. The sound of the radio started everyone and was heard throughout the bunker. Harold had even dropped the radio onto the table and everyone’s gaze was on the control area.

After a moment the radio chirped loudly as continued to broadcast from the girl’s side as it got lodged between something that held the button on, filling the silent bunker with the sounds swift thumping of a pair of shotgun shots mixed with the thunderous, speaker rattling Carno roars. As one of the guns stopped, the sound of the Humvee’s engine could be heard struggling as Danielle obviously tried to get away from the carnivores.

“They are trying to flip us!” Nicole shouted over the sound of a loud metallic crunch.

“Son of a bitch!” Danielle yelled after another crunch sound.

The sound of machine gun fire started as one of the girls had taken one of the Security Division’s M16 rifles with them. Magazine after magazine was fired, and due to the ruggedness of the recommissioned war vehicle was obviously a factor in their now lengthy survival of such an attack. One of the Carno’s could be heard yelping while thudding off, before another sharp roar rang out. A final crunch was heard and the radio cut out on their side, leaving the bunker of waiting people horrified. Harold’s gut sank and he took a slow scan of all of the people around him before looking at Tim, who had most nervous face any of them had ever seen.

“We shouldn't have made them go out.” Harold spoke up, finally voicing his peace.

“They’re in an armored tank-car…” Tim seemed to reason that the girls might still have a chance. “Bullets couldn't make it through it, so what chance does a dinosaur have?”

“That is the thing, Tim…” Harold bit his cheek again for a second before retorting. “Bullets _can_ go through those things. They’re tough, but they ain’t invincible.”

“What the hell do you know, Finch?” Tim challenged him with a look.

“Did you not see what the hell went down in Panama two years ago?!” Harold yelled. “The armor on that vehicle isn’t _that_ thick! With enough time those dinosaurs would be able to rip their way through!” This was unlike him. Everyone knew Harold as a very collected and calm person that could handle about every tough situation world could have thrown at him. “And why?! We just probably lost two good people out there for what? A bullshit head count?!”

At this, the sound of wind howling had seemed to pick up sharply followed by a loud thunderous clash on the surface above. A bolt of lightning had struck one of the large trees just outside of the Compound of walls, so close that the sound even shook the air throughout the bunker. Those near the camera view watched at the tree toppled over onto one of the labs; the same lab that Danielle’s Raptor was in. After a moment of quiet, Tim straightened himself after the ordeal and being yelled at.  
  
“That’s it.” He announced as he stepped back over to the map table. “Enough of this tea party bullshit. We are calling for immediate evacuation.”

“But… sir…” The radio man started up about concerns for the storm only to be immediately cut off by Tim.

“I don’t give a single shit!” Tim demanded loudly. “You call the mainland and get the Chinooks over here to get us! This is a top priority. Call Ludlow if you have too, god damn it!” 

“What about Danielle and Nicole?!” Harold spoke up, while the likely chance they would survive was actually low, he still would prefer to wait until they could check.

“No. Forget it. It isn’t your call, Finch.” Tim told him sternly. “Do your damned job for all these people. It is a loss for sure, but they are just more paperwork for me. So don’t you worry-”

Tim was swiftly cutoff by Harold socking him square in the corner of the jaw, sending the younger man clear off his feet and onto the floor. While Harold was getting up in age, the old Korean Vet was no slouch. He rubbed his raw hand and watched Tim roll onto his backside to look up towards him holding his face. “What the hell was that?!?”

“If you ever say some shit like that about another person again I will do so much worse, you slimy fuck.” Harold spoke with such an acute tone of hatred in his voice; no one in this room had ever heard this side of him. Yet when he looked up from Tim no one in the room security or scientist had anything to say. “We are going to give them an hour… And if we don’t hear back from them we will call for the Chinooks. If this worthless S.O.B. tries to slide any more shit I want to hear about it. Got it?”

The room was filled with nods and ‘yes sirs.’

“Good. Now I'm stepping out to take a smoke.” He said, picking up Tim’s pack of cigarettes and lighter heading towards the bunker door. It had been years since he had smoked, and after that, he was very much looking forward to it.

As he passed the camera computer, it was hardly noticed that the Raptor from Danielle’s lab was making its escape by scuttling carefully up the trunk of the tree that had crashed through the wall of his cage. His tail disappeared from view as he slipped out the destroyed bit of wall, leaving the building for the stormy dark island.

Act I Chapter I   
_“Miss October”_

Danielle sat propped up on the top of the 1973 Chevrolet Blazer’s roll bar perfectly still. She breathed quietly as she watched a small herd of Stegosaurus through the zoom lens in her hands. She had been waiting for the perfect moment; the perfect shot. It had only been a short while since she set herself up on a slight ridge across the field in a mildly dense tree line. At this distance the dinosaurs would pay her no mind. She lightly adjusted herself as she refocused her aim at the Stegosaurus herd.

“Come on…” She whispered very lightly as a cool breeze brushed through her short and dark afro. “Just pick your head up…” 

After another moment or so, she watched two of the older Stegosaurus’ move closer to the small group of much smaller and younger ones in the herd. The young ones were safe and content as they grazed on the field grass, and the larger ones mingled around casually while keeping their eyes out for any threat to the herd. One of the three young ones eased themselves down to lay down in the warm grass, and one of the adults of the herd lifted their head up to peer towards the east; away from Danielle’s location. _Perfect_. She thought. Danielle pressed the button on her Canon Eos 650, taking several pictures while the moment was just right.

She took a final set of photos and lowered the camera and its long lens. “Hell yes!” She exclaimed quietly as she let the camera hang off her neck. 

Reaching down into the passenger seat of the open top Blazer, Danielle picked up her clipboard and pulled out her field journal and a gel pen. She checked her watch and began a new entry was started.

‘6/28/1989 2:05 p.m., Ms. Danielle Arnold. 

  
Was out with a small list of things from Dr. Harding and decided on trying to get some more pictures for the 1990 calendar like I’ve been talking nonstop about. Yesterday I got a few good shots of the Packy B group and the Carno girls chasing an alpaca… Might not use those last ones but they were badass! Today I managed to get several great shots of the Stego groups. I also have observed that the several differently aged groups have formed an entire herd together, the oldest ones taking in the youngest ones in as if they were family. That was one of the theories kicking around the lab, but it is cool to see it pan out that way… I’ll study the artificial family dynamics at a later time. I have to get one or two more things done and stop by one of the small carnivore paddocks on the way back to the Vet Depot. It is two little girl’s birthday!  
  
Will add more to today later if need be… 

Also: Avoid tuna sandwiches for lunch. It’s a bit too pungent for the dinosaurs. If they are giving me dirty looks then I don’t think I should be eating it.’ 

Danielle chuckled at the last part and set the clipboard down with the paged up so the ink would dry. She then stood up straight and stretched her arms out as she looked around. It had been a good and productive day. She had gotten quite a bit done and the weather was fantastic; both of which were of the norm, however today just seemed all around pleasant. Especially since she had nearly gotten enough pictures for the calendar. She sighed and lowered herself down into the driver's seat of the truck. After collecting her things, she set everything down where it should be nice and orderly before sliding into the driver seat. After the large 5.7L motor began warming up she was soon ready to leave. She put the vehicle into gear and started off towards the exit of the large herbivore paddock. 

As she left, she honked the horn twice to let the Stegosaurus herd know she was leaving; it was simply a courtesy that she tried to do for all of the dinosaurs so they would be conditioned to know that the two horn beeps would know they would stop being so closely watched. It seemed to work well enough for them, and in turn they seemed to respect the specific vehicle’s presence whenever Danielle would be around. She called it the ‘1 & 2’ pattern; One beep for approach, two for leaving. Some argued it was pointless, but she however would smirk all the way to the bank for she knew that she was one of the few people that were able to get so close to the dinosaurs without being sedated. After a decent drive through some mostly smooth grassy fields, she soon approached the paddock gate. Once she stopped nearby, she unlocked and opened the large gate before driving through. Once on the other side, she hopped back out of the Blazer, closed and relocked the paddock gate before driving off down the trail to the north.

After a few short minutes of driving, she came to a stop near one of the few acclimation paddocks closer towards the center of the island. These were the paddocks that they would put new dinosaurs into, either grouped or individually, so that they could learn the habits of being fed from the feeders, get used to the trees and types of grass that were on the island. They would be placed in these once they were old enough to fend for themselves, and once they had typically hit a decent state of adulthood, which was typically one to two years old, they would be sedated and transported into the appropriate regional paddock. There were several regional paddocks that had different purposes; there were two or three for herbivores depending on their size and needs, and several more for individual carnivore groups as they typically didn’t play well together. Today, however, Danielle was here to visit a specific acclimation paddock housing a pair of Allosaurus sisters. The two were from the last attempted batch of Allosaurus eggs that were made, and were the only two viable results from the eight eggs that were made. Despite one of them having an issue or two with being sick, thus being a hair smaller than the other, the two were perfectly fine and healthy dinosaurs. Danielle honked the horn of the Blazer and got out after parking near the viewing platform built over the fence. 

She got out of the truck and went to the Blazer’s short bed to grab a heavy large bag before reclosing the hatch of the truck. With a slight grunt she hefted the bag’s strap onto her shoulder and made her way to the viewing platform. By the time she had made it up the several sets up stairs, she stepped up into the sturdy platform that overlooked most of the open area of the paddock. The platform had a metal roof that covered most of the 12x18 foot platform except for the lip that faced the paddock. The rest of the platform had a frame with decently sturdy walls on the side looking away from the paddock; just enough to block out some of the elements in case someone needed to do an extended study with the dinosaurs. Danielle set the bag down onto the small work table on the platform with a thud, and walked over to the inner edge of the viewing platform. Looking down over the railing, she could see the Allosaurus sisters glancing around, making some noise as they were watching and waiting for something to happen. They had heard the vehicle and its horn, as well as the metallic footsteps of Danielle going up the stairs, but they hadn’t seen her yet.

Danielle whistled loudly. “Up here, girls!” She called down enthusiastically.

The two Allosaurus’ both snapped their gaze upward towards the viewing platform as they heard the noise, warbling and tilting their heads as they tried to identify the Human.

“That’s it…” Danielle couldn’t help but grin. Despite what people said, she always loved watching the carnivores figure things out. “Good afternoon! How are the both of you beautiful girls?” The two dinosaurs seemed to take a quick glance at each other before coming closer to the viewing platform, craning their necks up a bit more to watch Danielle. “Aww…. Not talkative today? Well… that’s alright, cause it’s a special day! I have something for the both of you.” Danielle spoke with the most cheerful voice as she was talking to them.

The larger of the two sisters seemed to make a rumbling sound up at her, as if she understood partially of what Danielle had said. It was most likely just the ‘have’ and ‘something’ part.

“Yeah!” She replied as if she was holding an actual conversation with the creatures. “Give me one sec.” She said as she stepped away from the railing to go back to the bag. She pulled out a pair of gloves and put them on before opening the bag to inspect the contents. The bag was full of a few dozen pounds of meat, mainly being large flank and tenderloin cuts. With her gloves on, she picked up a pair of the cuts of beef and returned to the railing. The sisters looked up more intently now as they saw her return after grabbing the ‘something.’ They were quite interested now.

Danielle looked down at them and watched them for a second, looking at each of their crimson colored eyes. Once she was ready she leaned forward and loudly clicked the inside of her right cheek to get their attention.

The two dinosaurs seemed to stiffen and quiet down, waiting to see what was to happen.

“Good…” She smiled. “You see this?” She lifted up one of the cuts of meat for them to see, keeping the second behind her back. 

The sisters snorted loudly and made a few low chittering sounds. Danielle noticed the larger one calm after a second before taking a step back so that her smaller sister would get the first one; this was a behavior Danielle had noticed before.

“Here…. Happy birthday, Girl!” She called down softly as she lightly tossed the meat down to the little one, who very happily hopped up to catch it in her mouth. “Good! And now you, big girl.” She said, soothing in tone, as she pulled the other piece and tossed it down for the other. 

Over the next few minutes, Danielle tossed most of the meat down to the two Allosaurus sisters. The two seemed very delighted for the pleasantries and the treats; it was rare that they had such a treatment from any of the InGen staff. With two remaining cuts of meat, Danielle had wanted to try a small experiment. She pulled out a small container of some light lemon pepper seasoning and dusted the meat with it. She had always wondered if the dinosaurs would care about flavors for a while now, and it was just recently that Dr. Harding had given her the ‘ok’ for such a thing. This was after she argued that the carnivores seemed to each have preferences on what cuts of meat they liked, so why couldn’t they have a preference and affinity for flavoring? Henry Wu had a good laugh when he heard them talking about it near the administration facilities whenever Danielle proposed it. After she had cross referenced what the Allosaurus’ could have with Dr. Harding, she picked a season out and waiting for a trial.

“This last one is special, ok?” She asked as she stood back up to the railing. She noticed a curious look in both of their eyes as the smelt the aroma of the seasoning. “Now if you don’t like it, you can spit it out. Here you go…” She said, tossing them both down their bits of meat.

To her surprise, the sisters both caught their pieces of meat, only to pause once they caught it as if puzzled. Both of them then leaned down slightly and tilted their heads over so they could gnaw and tenderize the meat with their rear teeth, taking several moments before finally swallowing the last of the meat. They enjoyed it; she had been right!

“Now alright, girls… I am gonna have to leave in a minute or two…” She spoke down at the dinosaurs below as if they would care. “I really should be getting back to the Vet Depot… I’ve got a paper to write.” 

The smaller Allosaurus made a slight whining huff noise up at her, tilting its head.

“Oh, I know… I wish I could sit and chat with you two the whole day, but then I wouldn’t get any work done.” Danielle said, sighing. “And I don’t get work done then I can’t stay on the island and see you beautiful gals.” 

As it always was with the two Allosaurus sisters, the smallest one was always the more curious sort compared to her larger sister, who now was swiftly losing interest in Danielle based on the fact they were getting no more treats. So with a deep rumble, the larger sister looked away from the Human above and began to trot off for more interesting things. The smaller one glanced between her sister and Danielle and made another series of warbling noises towards Danielle.

Danielle smirked slightly and lightly shook her head. “It’s alright. I’ll see you two later. Go have fun, Girly.” She said, waving lightly at the Allosaurus. The Carnivore seemed to take the hint and turned to quickly follow her sister. Danielle watched for a moment further and yet again sighed. She sometimes wished she could join them somehow. Life was simple for these creatures, and Danielle wished she could have that. No course work or responsibilities; they could just roam about, eat, and experience the breathtaking island. _Alright Danielle_. She thought. _Enough wishful daydreaming. You got shit to do._ With a final sigh, she turned and left the tower to head back to the Vet Depot.

A little bit later, Danielle pulled the Blazer into the farthest vehicle bay in the Vet Depot’s three vehicle garage. The right bay was for Dr. Harding’s 85’ Chevrolet Suburban, and the middle bay was left open for loading and prep. The raised area beyond the vehicle bays was where the Vet staff’s lounge, workspace, and kitchenette was. It was a fairly small space but they did with what they had. They kept all of their supplies and equipment on standby in a 53ft ocean container that was built into the building; access was behind Dr. Harding’s vehicle bay with a direct path to the center bay if more than just his vehicle was needed. Other than that, there was a set of stairs on the furthest back wall to a small loft that served as Dr. Harding’s office. As she came to a stop in the vehicle bay, she could see Ashley Davis, the Chief Vet’s assistant who mostly just ran the Depot and kept track of everything, standing at the main table messing with some equipment. She turned the Blazer off and undid her seat belt.

“Welcome back!” The Assistant said as he turned to face her, leaving whatever he was working on at the table.

“Hey there…” Danielle smirked as she pulled herself up by the Blazer’s roll bar to stand up over the windshield. “Oh _Ashley._ You owe me a hundred bucks!” She declared, grinning.

The man scoured at his name; he hated when people called him by either his first or middle. Ashley Tyler Davis. He thought it was a stupid name, and so he would tell everyone to just call him either ‘Davis’ or ‘Dave.’ “Agh. What. What is it??” He asked, annoyed.

Danielle smirked even wider. “Seasoning.” She answered simply.

The word itself caused Davis to tilt his head backwards with the heaviest eye roll he could possibly muster. “This shit again??” He asked before giving a sharp, annoyed exhale.

“Oh you bet your sweet ass ‘this shit again’!” Danielle shot back, pointing an excited finger at the exasperated man. “I was right.”

“Whatever, Danielle.” He sighed again before turning back to the table. “I have better things to do than talk about stupid bets with you.”

“Oh no you don’t! Oh hell no!” Danielle said loudly with a laugh as she slipped out of the Blazer and quickly grabbed the empty bag that the meat had been in. “We are talking about it!” She announced as she nearly jogged up the steps to the elevated area to join him. “Here… My proof.” She said as she dug a bottle of lemon pepper seasoning and presented the half bottle of it.

Davis took a decent look over at the seasoning bottle. “...You took my seasoning…”

“Yeah. I did.” She replied with a heavy dose of sass on top. “I fed it to the Allosaurus sisters.”

“Bull shit!”

“What?! Do you think I just kicked back and did nothing today? Had a little cookout on the island with the dinosaurs using your stuff without inviting you, Dave? Do you really think I’m that cold?” She demanded, with hand on hip.

“No… Of course not…” He said. To be fair, she did just call him by his first name.

“I put it on two large cuts of meat and let it soak in all day and fed it to the two Allosaurus sisters. It’s their birthday today after all.”

“...And?”

“They loved it.” Danielle smirked with an excited chuckle as she crossed her arms.

Davis looked down at the seasoning jar in thought. He had been duped. “Well… good for them.” He said casually as he set the seasoning down on the table, trying to skirt around the topic.

“Uh uh.” Danielle cocked an eyebrow. “You’re gonna pay up.” 

“I am not giving you 100$ over a petty bet over some dinosaur treats.” He said definitively.

“You can’t just back out of a bet like that!” Danielle pressed further, getting closer to the man.

“Oh, I just did.” He said, looking down slightly at her. “What are you going to do about it?”

Danielle thought for a second before snorting. “Would you prefer to be called Ashley or Tyler?”

The man’s face turned red in frustration. He was about to retaliate with something snarky, but the two were interrupted by a small yet abrupt sound; a low chuckling from Dr. Harding’s office above. Gerry Harding was known for being a man of steel nerves and never ending patience, if he was even to grin at something said it would grind the whole room to a halt in shock.

“If you don’t pay her I will make you power wash the depot every day for the rest of the month.” Dr. Harding spoke firmly despite the humor in his voice, speaking loud enough for it to carry through the depot so all could hear.

The words hit Davis’ ears and he looked up to the heavens above and with an aggravated sigh, he looked down helplessly at the table. “Alright, fine! A bet is a bet!” He said as he ran his fingers through his short dirty blond hair. If there was one thing that he hated, it was washing the building. The water just got everywhere and he absolutely despised being wet. “I can pay you tomorrow after I get back to Town.”

“Sounds good. Thank you, Davis” Danielle smirked.

At this point, Dr. Harding was coming down the stairs to check in on fully what was going on. “So the carnivores like seasoned meat, mmm?” The much older, grey haired man asked as he joined them at the table.

“Yes. Very much so!” Danielle answered him. “They even seemed to chew on the stuff for a bit.”

“Well I’ll be damned… I knew they would.” He gave her a slight proud nod.

“Wait… How did you _know_?” Davis demanded, turning back to the table.

“When the first batch of Raptors was growing I used to sit up on top of the platform and watch them… I’d get bored and toss some meat from my lunch sometimes… they always seemed to want my jerky the most… even though the sugar probably wasn’t good for their teeth…” Dr. Harding hummed in thought.

“What…” Davis shot him a look. “You used to toss the raptors jerky?!”

“Yeah. I did…” Dr. Harding nodded with a raised eyebrow, reflecting on the good ol’ times before looking back at the younger man. “You should pay more attention… I have actually told you that before…”

“You have!?”  
  
  


“Yeah.” He paused. “When stuck with angry carnivores, throw jerky. It should work every time.” Danielle remembered him saying something like that. “If the jerky is worth a damn it will be tastier than an entire person.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Well… It will be at tastier than your attitude, Dave.” Dr. Harding smirked towards Davis. 

Danielle snorted as she held back a laugh.

“Uh. I am taking a walk!” Davis declared loudly and made a quick exit out of the depot. Once he had left, Dr. Harding chuckled again.

“You are on a roll today, sir.” Danielle chuckle as she shook her head, seeing an ever elusive Dr. Harding joke.

“Ahh... it was nothing.” Dr. Harding brushed it off as he looked down at whatever Davis was working on at the table. “So… other than your visit with the Allosaurus pair, how were the paddocks today?” He asked with genuine interest as he looked back up to her.

“Quiet, honestly…” She kind of shrugged. “I pretty much had a few hours of just chilling with the herbivores… I got some great pictures of the Stegosaurus groups…”

“What month are they going to be?” Dr. Harding asked, one of his eyebrows cocking upward curiously.

Danielle thought for a second. “October… definitely October. I got the Carno group chasing food yesterday for November… so that leaves December…” She added. “And I have no idea what I am going to do for that.”

“You’ll figure it out.” He said with a proud smile, supportive as always. “Anything else?”

“Uh… Actually yes.” She nodded. “It seems like the Stegosaurus groups have all kinda formed a single herd.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah… The older groups seem to have taken on the role as the guardians of the youngest batch.”

“Like adopting? Surrogacy?” He asked, crossing his arms, truly interested.

“Kind of.” She said, thinking back on it. “I know we were talking about that maybe happening, but it didn’t happen with the Packies.”

“No…” He looked down in thought, shifting his jaw slightly. “Well. Maybe it is a good thing… we will just have to check on them daily to make sure they stay nice with each other.”

Danielle nodded.

“As for that… You are done for the day. You probably have things to do so clean up and get out of here.” He told her.

“I just have an assignment to write… You sure you don’t need me for anything else?” She asked. It wouldn’t bother her in the slightest. Even if she had to crunch assignments after work, she was doing what she loved to do.

Dr. Harding smiled. “The fact that you still ask that after every day even after being here for six months is one of the things I love about you, Danielle; you are always willing to help no matter what you have going on.” He paused in thought. “Hell, Dave stopped asking after the second day.” He shook his head half seriously. As much as he would pick, he was fine with Davis.

“Well its how dad raised me.” She shrugged. “I’ll grab my stuff and get going. Maybe I can hit the 4:25 Bus.”

Dr. Harding shook his head for a moment. “Screw the Island Express, take the Blazer.”

Danielle’s heart stopped for a moment, not believing what she just heard. 

“Yeah. You’re the only one who uses it anyway, so it’s fine. I trust you.” He smiled. “Just take some money from the cash box and fill her up.”  
  
“Thank you, Dr. Harding!” She said, still in shock he would let her just take one of the vet vehicles home.

“Yeah, yeah. Now get out of her before I put you back to work.” He lightly joked and waved her away before heading back towards his office. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Danielle gave him a nod and shook her head; being with InGen for only six and a half months and she was already being trusted to take home company equipment was a little surprising to her. To be honest, she knew that if it wasn’t for her willingness to hop-to and get things done with a good attitude, Dr. Harding wouldn’t have grown to trust her so highly. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she took a fifty dollar bill from the cash box before going back to the Blazer to leave. With a honk of the horn, she waved and drove off for the Boroughs.

The road from the Vet Depot was well worn; unlike the other dirt roads of Isla Sorna. It hadn’t been flattened down and settled by the tires of hundreds of vehicles each week. It was pretty much just Dr. Harding’s Suburban and the Vet Blazer, with the occasional exception where someone would come to the depot with dinosaur health questions. If you knew where the ruts and dips were, it wasn’t too rough of a trail to drive on. After a few minutes the trail met the main route to the area. If she would turn left she would further the hill to the other side of a small mountain that the Vet Depot was located. At the end of the road was the Administration and Lab facilities of the island, and to the right, the road curved down the hill towards the North East Docks and further on to the Boroughs. 

Turning the Blazer to the right, she drove down the side of the hill. Further down the hill, the North East Docks became visible through the trees as the road banked left and steepened slightly. The Docks had been built on an inlet just off the main road between the Labs and the Boroughs for the logistical ease of getting food and supplies to the town for the residents while being close enough to have only a quick trip up the hill for equipment going to the hilltop facilities. There was currently a small freighter being offloaded in the middle of the three piers. By the specific pier and by the Atlantic Transportation and Starline ocean containers, Danielle knew that this shipment would have mostly supplies for the Town. At least that is what she remembered from several conversations with the Winscott brothers, who were the two main employees responsible for unloading and unpacking the containers that came from the freighters. The two had told her that the system that Chris Fris, the Island’s Freight Manager, had set it up. One dock was for equipment for the facilities, one was for general goods, food, and other things for the civilian side of things, and the third dock was for livestock and food for the dinosaurs on the island. The two of them had been very sure to also mention that the freighters would never go to the wrong pier. According to them, the freight manager was very ‘Anal Retentive,’ or something similar sounding to that. The brothers were usually a few beers gone by that point in the story; they were a respectable bunch and polite but hell or high water the two could stir up some noise.

She pulled up to the vehicle gate that separated the Dock and the Facility area. Once stopped, Danielle leaned out to press a nearby intercom button. After waiting for a few moments, the intercom speaker made a few buzzing noises as it connected to the line to the security office in the small InGen building near the Docks. Eventually the unexpected voice of a Harold Finch came through. “Gate Security.” He spoke to the point and low in a grumble of sorts.

“Mr. Finch. What are you doing manning the gate?” Danielle asked, looking towards the camera positioned to the top left of the gate.

He scoffed lightly. “I should ask you what you are doing driving the truck.” He proposed, more actually asking than proposing of course. “Did Harding say you could borrow that?”

Danielle looked upwards through her sunglasses and smirked. “No. I stole it.”

“Right.” She could almost feel his smirk on the other end of the intercom. “Well… I’ll let you through... Stay out of trouble, Miss Arnold.”

“Thank you!” Soon the gate slid open and she continued towards the Boroughs.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful; unlike most of the trails around the island, the main route was paved and decently maintained. The road to town, while short, was a smooth and casual drive with only a few gradual bends as it went up and down another small hill. The traffic was usually light on the route; the only vehicles typically seen were those belonging to important people, Security, or one of the three Island Transportation buses going between the facilities and town. 

Once the road started up another hill, there was a tall metal wall with a large double set of vehicle gates on the hilltop. The wall was meant to separate the area between the docks and a regional paddock designated to smaller herbivores; most of the dinosaurs in this regional paddock where shorter in head height to that of a regular sized person. Two of the species that lived there were the flocks of Gallimimus and small herd of Pachycephalosaurus. InGen had purposefully placed the more gentle and easier to handle types of animals closer to the Town, while the carnivore paddocks tended to be further away from the facilities and residencies of the island. All for just a bit more of a sense of security.

Once her vehicle approached the gate, the man in the small security tower nearby opened the gate for her, a buzzer beeped, letting her know to drive through. Just on the other side of the gate began a road named ‘Rue de Jules Verne,’ named after the great adventure novelist of the 1800s, and appropriately named so as it was the only established road that left the Town’s perimeter. As Danielle turned down this road, she could see the top of a small hydropower dam that had been built to create a rain reservoir to provide fresh water and electricity to most of the Island. She continued the drive further into the valley, getting closer and closer to the Boroughs. As she passed halfway between the dam and town she spotted a group of Gallimimus drinking from the small stream from the spillway; she could that they were having the time of their lives as it would seem. Once she got to town, she drove through the final gate and made her way towards the center of town.

The Boroughs was the name of the small worker town that served as the main place of lodging for most of the InGen employees. It was a humble spot only a few city blocks in size that was surrounded by a tall and rugged electrified fence. It had everything that regular town could need; a gas station, store, town hall and chapel, a restaurant, and plenty of small houses for everything. The furthest south building was the Operation Center, where the oversight of the north end of Isla Sorna took place. The headquarters was where the Security, Maintenance, and Animal Control offices were located. Main St. headed North through the center of town from there, and beyond all the other stops of interest John Hammond’s residency was the furthest north building of town. Once she had entered the north east gate, Danielle drove towards the center of town and turned down Main St. to head towards the gas station and restaurant in town. After passing the General Store and Tavern, she took a left turn into the Town’s gas station. 

She parked the Blazer next to the single set of gas pumps and turned the truck off. She got out and headed into the gas station’s front desk to pay for some fuel. After she passed under the ‘Seano’s InGen Gas & Repair’ sign above the door as she walked in. Inside the small building was dark haired man behind a small clerk counter standing in front of a stock of whatever liquid a vehicle would need from coolant to axle oil. As Danielle closed the door, the man smiled and gave a hearty ‘Good afternoon, Lass,’ in a heavy Scottish accent.

“Hey Sean.” She smiled and approached the counter.

“Good ‘afternoon, Missie!” He grinned. “Ey see you ‘ave a truck now.” 

“Yeah... Dr. Harding is letting me drive the secondary truck home now.” She explained, friendly as always to everyone.

“Ay… An’ she looks thirsty!” He commented with a chuckle.

“That she is… Fifty dollars on the pump for her, please.” Danielle said, sliding the large bill across the counter to the man.

“Oh! Of course, Lass. Now you ‘ave a nice day!” He called to her as she left to go fill up the Blazer. 

Once she had finished, Danielle got back into the truck and turning it back around to head back the way she came. Once she got to the intersection after the General Store and Tavern, she turned left onto Boroughs Ct. to drive a very short distance before turning left again onto Wells Pl., the road she lived on. Danielle’s home was the second house on the right, just a small place that was no bigger than a Studio apartment; however as small is it may be, it was home. She parked the Blazer in the grass next to the white fence that surrounded the small home, and got out. She put the truck’s cloth top up before heading inside. The main room of the small house was an area that served as a bedroom and living room. On the left half was the living room, which had a desk and computer near the bathroom. The other side was where her dresser, closet, and bed were. 

With a sigh, Danielle set her bag down on the ground and fell onto her bed, just wanting to enjoy her mattress for a few minutes of staring at the ceiling before figuring out what she wanted to do. The minutes quickly stretched to a few to a few dozen and after a not-so-short while, she sat up forcefully with an exaggerated sigh. She knew full well that she had things to do before she went to bed in a few hours; she had course work to do and on top of that she was soon to be hungry. She sighed again before checking the clock on her desk next to her computer. “It’s almost dinner time anyway…” Danielle said, sighing one final time as she got up and left her house for food

Maisey’s Restaurant, the Town’s main eatery, was just a quick walk across the street from Danielle’s home. Along with being a functioning diner, the place also was set up to make large batches of food to package ‘To-Go’ meals in an almost cafeteria fashion. Whether it be for breakfast at 8:00am, Lunch at 12:45pm, or dinner at 6:00pm, the staff always seemed to be somehow prepared and ready to serve at each meal. There were plenty of residents and workers alike who prefer not to stick around in the restaurant and eat, so for a small fee, one could just walk up, order one of the ‘quick’ meals, and then get a brown bag full of food in moments. It was quite convenient to say the least, and each of the meals that came from that kitchen was made with passion. The woman who ran the diner was a jolly heavier set women from Texas named Maisey Peters. This was a woman who was tough, reliable, and at the end of every day, lived for cooking. No matter what ever seemed to happen she was always in high spirits and ready to help anyone make a better day for themselves. The only one who seemed to have any issues with her was Sean’o Arter, whose gas station was right across the road from the restaurant… however there was some suspicions that there was more to those two than they seemed to show.

Danielle entered the Diner to find a surprisingly lack of people around, especially for a dinner time. There were a few workers waiting for To-Go meals, and a few others scattered around the restaurant. Near the counter, sat a British man in tan shorts and vest, with a tan slouch hat sat next to his plate of strange looking food; this was Robert Muldoon, the island’s Wildlife Supervisor and head of Animal Control. He was always a grim s.o.b. and he was never afraid to tell people the dangers of everything on the island. Honestly, Danielle sort of liked the man, as abrasive as he might be, behind his scowl it was obvious that he had everyone’s wellbeing far above his own. “Good evening, Danielle!” Maisey called out to Danielle as she came around the corner from inside the bustling kitchen behind the counter top.  
  
“Hello!” Danielle said back.   
  
“Come for dinner?”   
  
“Of course…” Danielle said, nodding. “To go, please.”  
  
“Alright! I was just about to ask!” Maisey nodded with a smile. “I should’ve figured. It’s what you always get.”  
  
“Well the food is great either way.” Danielle said honestly. “So I leave it up to the expert.” 

Maisey blushed slightly. “Oh stop it… Don’t flatter me like that, Sugar.” She smiled before changing gears immediately to Muldoon. “And how is your… ‘Eyreyo’ Robert?” 

Muldoon kind of bobbed his head from side to side, thinking over the plate of food. “It is well enough. You did a stellar job on the actual Irio…” He said, looking down at the mixture of mashed peas and potatoes. “Though it is quite the bizarre pairing to put it with your fried hash…”

“Oh I hope it isn’t too much!” Maisey said, with only a slight sense of worry in her voice. “I ain’t so well versed in Kenyan food, Robert.”

“I know… and I appreciate you trying… It does the job of reminding me of Africa....” As Danielle had heard before, Muldoon had worked with John Hammond for years as a Warden at several African preserves that Hammond owned.

“Well if you ever want me to try something else just let me know.” Maisey said as she took Danielle’s money and checked her out.

“And how are you, miss… Arnold, is it?” Muldoon asked, looking up at Danielle.

“Yes.” She nodded, giving him a smile. They had met a few times directly, and more in passing, while around the Town or when Muldoon would visit the Vet Depot on rare occasions. “I am fine.”

“Ah. I remember now: You are Ray’s girl, right?” He asked.

“Yeah… He helped me get the internship here on the island.” She added.

“Very good. Well… You have a pleasant day.” He nodded before returning to his food. He seemed to just want to confirm her face to her name.

“There you go, sweetie.” Maisey said as she finished cashing Danielle out and sliding a weighty brown paper bag across the counter.

“Thanks, ma’am!” Danielle smiled as she took the bag from the counter.

“Come back anytime.” Maisey smiled back, telling Danielle what she told everyone who was leaving her restaurant

With food in hand, Danielle would return to her little home back across the street. She was excited to see what food was today’s ‘To-Go’ meal. Usually the To-Go meals weren’t overly complicated, typically being simple things that could be made en-mass with little work such as cheeseburgers or macaroni & cheese. Though on occasion, Maisey would fire up the pair of large smokers she had behind the restaurant and surprise everyone to a treat; all the while she usually never told anyone, just on the fact she liked seeing the reactions of everyone. When Danielle got home, she took the bag of food to her computer desk and moved the keyboard of her Macintosh II computer so she could spread the food out. As she laid the contents out on the desk she was surprised to find a shredded BBQ steak sandwich on a Kaiser bun, a large baked potato, a slice of pecan pie, and several other fixings such as salt, butter, and sour cream for the potato; tonight’s To-Go meal was a great one. The meal, paired with a can of Coke Classic, was quite satisfying. _Danielle wouldn’t be having any of that ’New Coke’ shit._

She took her time to enjoy her meal before pulling her keyboard down after cleaning the desk. Now that she had eaten and relaxed for a little while, she had some assignments to finish for her course work and for InGen. She leaned over and grabbed a cassette tape out of a box beside the desk and looked at it: Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey. She gave a smirk as she thought before pulling the tape out and sliding it into a stereo she had on the other side of the desk. She booted up the computer, and as the sounds of industrial rock she got ready to get some work done.


	2. Miss October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the mixup with these chapters. It seems that something happened with the ordering... but don't worry. It's good now!

SGTLEGENDKILLER

‘For Those of The Five Deaths’

A Jurassic Park Fanfiction

Act I Chapter II  
_“The Hatchery”_

Danielle swung around and brought the Blazer briskly up the road leading to the Administration and Lab compounds; the dirty and damp tires spinning as she shoved the gas pedal to the floor. The engine roared as the truck dropped into first gear, lurching forward as mud and grass were thrown from the tires. She was late for her shift at the Lab due to events that had happened earlier in the day with her and Dr. Harding. While this wasn’t anything she would be really reprimanded for, she disliked being late for things; it was very unlike her. At worse she would catch some flak from the other Lab workers as playful jabs. Either way, she raced up the hill until she reached the top. As she crested the final corner at the top of the hill, she slowed down to turn smoothly around one of the Island Express buses. _She didn’t miss riding on the Island Line._

She turned tightly into a parking spot in the paved lot at the end of the road, the thick off-road tires scuffed loudly across the concrete as she came to a swift halt. She quickly turned the Blazer off and grabbed her bag as she slid out of the truck, turning on her heel to walk with haste for the nearby buildings. She would first have to go sign into her station in her cubicle on the second floor of the Computer Lab. With a wave to a few coworkers in the small courtyard between the three buildings in the compound, she drew her keycard out to let herself inside. Beyond the door was one of the few security guards that were always posted downstairs at a small desk. Today it was a man just a bit older than her, his name was Kyle Anderson or something like that; he was one of the guards on rotation in this building. He was a nice guy who always had something to say to everyone who entered the building. Kyle gave her a slight nod and left her be, seeing as she was clearly in a rush.

Danielle made her way up the stairs and down the hall before making a right into the first office space with a few cubicle spaces. Due to it being later in the day now, there was only one other person in the room when Danielle walked in.

“Well hey there...” The voice of Ben Charlton greeted her as he poked his head around the side of his cubicle.

“What’s up, Ben?” Danielle asked with an exhale, she tried to catch her breath once she set her bag down by her cubicle. 

“Not much…” He replied with a tired sigh. “I’m just staying late to work through some things in the system…” Ben, much like Danielle, was working through a grad program with InGen in order to get his Master’s degree in Computer Administration.

“Nothing serious I hope.” She said, giving a little smirk.

“Nah, just a few little loop issues Dennis wants me to look over,” Ben explained with a sigh. “I needed some more hours anyway.”

“I hope you don’t stay here too late, Ben.” She said, sliding her jacket off to slip into her Lab coat.

“I won’t.” He smiled back at her.

The door opened and a heavyset man poked his head in at them both. “Uh, ben. Have you finished looking into those things? The uh, redundant loops we saw this morning?” The man asked almost timidly, pushing up his thick glasses up further upon his nose. This was Dennis Nedry, the guy responsible for all of the computer and networking systems around the Island.

“Yes, sir.” Ben nodded his head lightly. “I got to pretty much most of them... I think I have maybe four or five of them left, but I am staying here till it is all done.”

“Oh… Yeah. That should be fine.” Dennis said almost in surprise. He always was one to bitch and moan about working long hours to make sure stuff was running right.

“Yeah. It shouldn’t take me long to wrap those up. Is there anything else we have to do on the network side of things?”

“Uh, yeah. If you are going to stay, we can roll forward the em… the uh, system update tonight then. At least set it up and all if you know what I mean.”

“Sure thing. Let’s do it.” Ben smiled. “But first, could you help a brotha out and get me a coke from the vending machine?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Dennis shook his head and started to leave.

“I’ll get right to work on wrapping up those last few things...” Ben called out through the closing door. “So why are you so late today?” Ben looked up back to Danielle as she was almost about to leave.

“An issue with the Carnotaur group. The older ones gashed up the runt again…. But not too badly.”

“Almond will be ok, then?” Ben wondered. ‘Almond’ was the nickname of the Carno runt due to how the stripes on her sides looked wrinkly like the surface of an actual almond. She was one of Ben’s favorite dinosaurs.

“Yeah. I think she will be… And so does Dr. Harding.” Danielle said with a smile.

“Good.” He smiled. “It sounds like you got a busy night over in the Labs tonight. Something about a few batches hatching.”

“Yeah. That is what Dr. Harding mentioned. We will see. I have to go.”

“Alright, then get going!” Ben smiled.

“Yep.” She said as she turned for the door.

“One more thing.” 

“Hmm?” She stopped and looked back at him.

“Maybe if when your work is done and if I’m still here, wanna go get some drinks?” He asked, giving her a slightly suggestive eyebrow.

Danielle rolled her eyes. “We will see, ok?” Before the conversation could continue, she dipped out down the hall. 

After just a short walk across the courtyard, Danielle buzzed her way into the lab building’s large lobby. The lady behind the crescent-shaped wrap around desk looked up and kind of gave her a hopeless look before turning from her screen to Danielle. She could see the exhaustion in the woman’s face; at least the day had been felt mutually around the island.

“Hey, Ms. Arnold.” The woman, Danielle remembered her name was Sarah or Stacey or something like that. “I had some messages for you from Wu, but we had a system crash about… I don’t know, twenty minutes ago and I’m still trying to get my emails back up… Just one of those days I guess...” The woman, whether Stacey or Sarah, explained as she fiddled with her pen. “They were having some problems up in the hatchery labs, too, but I think that’s all straightened out. Wu told me to make sure you headed down there as soon as you got into your lab coat.”

Danielle sighed slightly and nodded. “Alright. Thank you, Ma’am.” 

“Yeah… Well, you better get going. Sounds like you’re gonna have to be in the barrel today.” The woman said, always having a slight sense of the terminology.

Danielle simply nodded again and made her way to the locker room to slip into her lab clothes. Once she was ready, she quickly set her bag down and joined the rest of the lab team up in one of the hatching labs. 

“It’s nice that you finally decided to finally show up, Danielle.” Dr. Henry Wu, the lead geneticist of the InGen, commented with annoyance.

“Yeah, yeah.” Danielle lightly rolled her eyes. “We had a situation at the vet depot.” She said, not wanting to go fully into it again; it was too long of a story.

Dr. Wu gave a slight noise of further annoyance. “Well, can you explain to me how that helps us here in the labs?” 

_You snarky bastard._ She thought. “It doesn’t. I was just telling you what happened.”

“Please try to keep your priorities straight, Ms. Arnolds.” He said in an almost scolding tone.

Danielle instead smirked. “I’ll be sure to run that by the dinosaurs... You know… To see how they feel about it.” He seemed to lose interest in the debate at that point. “What are we working with today?”

“We have two batches of eggs hatching today…” He said, looking at the clipboard in his hands. “The first will be Ceratosaur, the second will be Paralophosaurus. We administered the accelerants to the carnivores earlier and should be hatching soon.” He informed her. “You will take notes for the first batch today, later you can take the hands-on stuff as you have done before.” 

“Great!” That meant she will handle newborn dinosaurs, and that was one of her favorite things in the world to do. “I’ll go grab my notebook.”

She grabbed her things and headed for one of the nearby hatch labs where there was already the bustling noise of others working; they must have been close to hatching already. That being the case, Danielle snapped to and spent some time playing assistant to a bunch of people as everyone prepared for the soon arriving dinosaurs. After a bunch of prep, everyone was left watching the batch of eggs on the incubation table. The concern of the scientists was felt throughout the room about this batch; of eight eggs, only four had shown signs of movement in the last week or so. InGen was always locked in a never-ending battle with the viability of the embryos. The process was extremely complicated and plagued with what must have been millions of variables and components that could go wrong; one fraction of a missed step or wrong bit of code and the survivability of the egg would drastically drop. Fertilization was by far the most difficult part. After an embryo passed fertilization and started growing, it was simply a waiting game. It helped that InGen had an always expanding facility of multiple labs trying everything to create and perfect the process. 

After what felt like forever, three of the eggs began wiggling and bumping from side to side. As the eggs became livelier, the faint muffled squeaks could be heard as the baby dinosaurs tried to figure out their escape. Eventually, a loud crack rang out from one of the eggs; using its horned nose, the first of the Ceratosaurus hatchlings breached its egg. This crack was followed by another two, accompanied by a series of crumpling noises as the small carnivores shoved their snouts weakly through the side of the fractured eggshells. Before everyone knew it, a trio of baby dinosaurs were squealing and making a fuss as they wiggled out of the broken eggs. As the others in the room went to the hatchlings to get them from the table to go check them over, Danielle stood back and watched amazed. This was probably the 15th batch she had watched hatched, but she still hadn’t grown over the awe of their work; she somehow just grown past being so emotional that she would cry at the sight, but she still felt heavy in the throat. With all of her notes taken and her job done, she walked out into the hallway to have a seat on one of the benches in a small lounge nearby; she just needed a moment to collect her thoughts.

Due to her restlessness, she soon got up and went down to the lounge near the front lobby and made herself a cup of coffee before sitting by herself at a table in the corner of the room.

The second batch that Danielle was going to be present for was a large batch of fifteen or so Paralophosaurus eggs. This group should have a much better viability rate as they were a more complete and perfected species of dinosaur. InGen had already made at least four successful groups of them in the years before, because of this, there was a sense of confidence in the hatching lab. Danielle was a bit nervous as she was going to be one of the main staff that would give the hatchlings each their first physical after being hatched to make sure they were all good of health. She had done it a few times before but she had always been hands-on with the easier to handle babies like Ankylosaurus and Brachiosaurus; Even most of the carnivores were easier than most of the herbivores after hatching. She figured it might have done something with the natural proximity of the parents or a very old system of fight or flight for the herbivores. Whatever it was, some of the herbivores were rambunctious as hell, and she had heard stories about the ‘Para’ babies being especially hyper… ‘Bouncy’ was the exact word she had heard.

It wasn’t too long after the ‘wake up’ shock to the eggs was administered before the first of the eggs started chirping and shaking. This was quickly followed by all but one of the eggs following suit in a sort of chain reaction that led to all of the eggs nearly vibrating the whole hatching table. Soon, several of the eggs were breaking open to the frenzied beaks of the small Para hatchlings. As soon as their heads would pop free from their eggs; quickly they blinked the embryonic liquids from their eyes and tilted their heads back to all make whistling squeal noises before beginning to wiggle from the opened eggs. By the time that the first ones were out of their eggshells and learning how to hold themselves up, the last few of the hatching Paras were breaking through their eggs; only one of the eggs had failed to hatch. It was only a few moments later than the Para babies that had gotten acquainted with their legs were now curiously exploring the top of the table. One even began peer over the plastic lip, taking only half a second before making the decision to completely jump off the table; the room of scientists gasped in shock. Danielle, who had been watching the table closely, was ready to jump in quickly to catch the leaping baby.

“Jesus Christ, kid!” Danielle yelled out as she caught the small Paralophosaurus. “Is it that serious?” She asked rhetorically with a relieved chuckle. The hatchling squeaked and fussed in her hands as she lifted him up to her own eye level. “It’s…. ok… Just calm down, little one. You’ll be just fine.” She smiled at the little dinosaur, her heart-melting a little bit. “Let’s get the net up for them, guys.” Danielle told the others in the room.

The other personnel in the room quickly hopped to and put up a little metal netting skirt around the edge of the table to make sure any of the other hatchlings tried to jump off the table before they could be checked over. It probably should have been put up beforehand, but with these hatchlings, it was hard to really know how crazy the hatchlings could be. Danielle held the hatchling in her arms until the net was up around the side of the table; The little dinosaur seemed to calm down quite a bit, especially since she was lightly running her fingertips along it’s back, causing the little one to make soft cooing and warbling noises. Paralophosaurus hatchlings were arguably the cutest infants of the whole roster InGen was able to make, especially in the ‘toe bean’ department; the little bastards were soft and easy with people until very late adolescence. Once the net was put up, Danielle carefully returned the hatchling with its siblings on the table.

Once all of the babies had been given a chance to stretch their legs and get their bearings in the real world, the lab staff began to give each of the babies’ checkups to see if any of them had any issues outside of regular parameters. There was one with a slightly stunted tail and one with a questionable overbite, but neither of those was serious enough to raise any issue; their survival to adulthood would be the only way to see if those would be any detriment. After they had all gotten a good check over, the babies were put into one of the few animal crates on two rolling carts nearby. Now they had to be taken to their first pen.

With heavy carts of squealing and honking baby dinosaurs, Danielle and three other of the staff left the others to clean the hatchery room as they pushed the babies into another section of the building. After a short elevator ride to a lower floor and down a few Hallways deeper into the Hatchery labs, the carts were soon being pushed into a medium-sized enclosed pen for the babies. The enclosure was a roughly 15x15 ft. room with a lightly barred window on one side for observation purposes. There was a water trough and a few heated pads in the corner made up like nests for them along with a few other toys and necessities for them to grow. 

“Alright, little ones… Welcome to your first home.” Danielle said light in tone as she began to open the crate doors.

Several of the baby Paralophosaurus’ peeked out of their crates as Danielle stepped back but only looked around nervously from the transport crates. They didn’t seem too interested in leaving their boxes.

Danielle smirked. “Guys. I got it. Leave the pen, please.” She said, having an idea. Once the other staff members had left the pen, she leaned down and picked up a brown rubber dodgeball from the floor. “Alright, girlies… let’s try this.” She said, leaning in and presenting the ball to all of them, moving it along so they could all get closer to it and smell the ball; one or two of them tried to even go as far as to lick the ball. “Good… Now here is your first toy. Go get it!” She said as she stepped to the size and lightly bounced the ball out and away from the carts. For some reason, it had been shown in the earlier batches of Paralophosaurus that they either really liked the texture or the sound of the type of bouncy ball; so it ended up making for easy entertainment. 

The ball bounced off the floor and the babies squeaked and squirmed as they wiggled and hopped from their crates to give a careful chase. They _had_ to get the bouncing new and colorful thing! Once they caught up to it, the first few to reach the ball did their best to head-butt the thing lightly, causing the chase to continue as the ball bounced and rolled away from them.

Danielle giggled and waited for all of the young dinosaurs to get out of their crates before closing them before carefully removing the carts from the room.


	3. Guard Duty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get out, guys!

SGTLEGENDKILLER

‘For Those of The Five Deaths’  
A Jurassic Park Fanfiction

Act I Chapter III  
“Guard Duty”

Nicole brushed her hair past her eyes behind her ear as she looked down at the passing ocean below. The Agusta A-109A had been making a brisk pace from Nicaragua for some island cluster that she had heard from someone on the mainland as ‘Las Cinco Muertos,’ or ‘The Five Deaths’ in English. The guy at the hotel almost seemed spooked to talk about it, something about heavy conspiracies related to InGen and their government involvement with Costa Rica in preventing anyone outside of the company from getting anywhere near the island. Being from Texas she had learned a good amount of Spanish so she was able to pick up a decent bit of what the man was yapping about. She kinda chuckled about it in retrospect since the guy seemed to be talking about these islands like it some something out of King Kong or Godzilla or something; Either way, it was all stupid. Regardless of what legends she heard about InGen, she was on her way to work for their Security Division on their island. What sucked about the whole thing was that she had to uproot everything and move on-site on an island in the Pacific Ocean. However, they offered her a fantastic salary and besides: It was a Pacific Island near the Equator. How bad could it be?

“You think that this place is gonna have beaches, Brian?” One of the four men that had been hired on with her as a batch asked another.

“I mean sure.” Brian McGalleger, a Wisconsin native, answered as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt a bit. “Why the hell wouldn’t it? It’s an Island, Tony.”

“Well, not all islands have beaches, Brian?” The thinner man, Tony Himmel from Colorado, answered.

“And what Islands have you seen without beaches?” The man sitting directly across from Nicole asked.

“I don’t know… Manhattan?” Tony replied.

The eyes of the man across from him shot up humorously. “That doesn’t count.”

“I don’t care, Dane,” Tony said, throwing a hand up. “I just want to get to see all of us loose and chillin’ on the beach.”

Nicole, being the only woman in the group, could feel at least a few of their gazes move over to her. Typical. The ‘boys’ had been the worst part of the whole trip down here. Without saying a word, Nicole turned back to look at Tony with the most unenthused face she could give him with her arms crossed. She had learned very well in this man’s world that it paid to act and look as ‘bitchy’ as physically possible. Her look caused the three on the other side of the helicopter to grow quiet and uncertain. With just a look, she changed the whole atmosphere of the cabin and made them nearly squirm in their seats. After several seconds of them being quiet, Nicole went back to looking out the helicopter window at the water below.

Dane began to laugh. “You boys have a lot to learn about talking around ladies, don’t you?” He sighed. “Miss. Don’t worry about them… Now that we all have to for sure play nice together, I’ll do my best to help you keep them in line.” 

“And who the hell are you to boss us around, huh?” Tony asked, trying to regain some confidence.

“Well… Here is the thing, Tony. Only one of us is scared of the other… And I can betcha that my lumberjack ass isn’t afraid of you, ya dinky city slicker.” 

Nicole hummed at this softly. She really didn’t need Dane’s help, though she would admit that out of all of them, she hated him the least by far. From what she had heard in passing was that he was the son of some USAF couple that had lived near some base around Fairbanks, Alaska for years. She remembered him saying about growing tired of working for a logging company a few towns over and wanted to get into something less ‘exciting’ than being around falling trees and saws all day. He seemed like a nice enough guy overall, but she would have to see.

After more of a quiet ride, the helicopter passed to the far south of some island, and while they were a great distance away, the island’s green silhouette was breathtaking. That was Isla Nublar, which was the closest of six islands that were leased by InGen. They still had a bit to go if Nicole recalled on the maps she had glanced over the last few weeks. The helicopter would eventually begin to level out as it began its approach to the North edge of another island. Nicole leaned slightly to watch the helicopter pass over the shore and tree line before eventually seeing a group of large buildings in a clearing connected to a trio of docks. The helicopter came in nice and easy before settling down in a landing zone on the other side of the two warehouses, across from the docks. The helicopter began to power down and the doors were opened by one of the airmen.

Nicole was first to slide out onto the concrete; she had never been too fond of flying, so she was chomping at the bit to get to solid ground. Everyone piled out after her and they quickly moved away from the Helicopter as it began powering down. As they got to a safe distance, an older gentleman approached them from the nearest building. The man was wearing a dark blueish gray uniform and a medium-duty bulletproof vest with a holster on his hip. With a high and tight crew cut and his firm posture, Nicole could obviously see this guy was probably an old military guy. 

“Good morning, Trainees!” The man spoke loudly over the still powering down Heli. “I hope the flight wasn’t too rough for you all…” He gave a welcome smile. “I am Harold Finch; the head of security on the Island. It’s nice to finally meet all of you! I’ve heard great things about you all from the security team in Kenya.” He told them

Nicole nodded slightly, she was the only one of the group who hadn’t been relocated to John Hammond’s animal preserve to train. She was just given a detailed protocol booklet and was told that her military service was enough for most that the others would have learned.

“Now anyway.” The man paused to cough twice slightly from the dust from the helicopter, covering his mouth. “Let’s get you all inside. We have to have a little debrief and introduce you all to some important people on the island. Grab your bags and come on this way.” He said with an inviting wave of the hand as he turned to walk towards the building.

Now that the helicopter had powered down, the crew had gotten out to start pulling their bags from the rear compartment of the aircraft to set them down near the open door. Nicole had packed two bags for the trip, one full of clothes, the other of a few other things including some emergency gear and a pistol that InGen had approved her to bring along with her. She went to grab her bags and hefted them from the floor of the helicopter.

“Do you need a hand with those?” Tony offered quickly once she had lowered her bags to her side and over her shoulder. 

“Nope.” She replied tautly with a sigh as she stepped to the side so the others could grab their stuff. 

Once they had all grabbed their bags, they made their way after Mr. Finch who was waiting around the corner of the building near the entrance. 

“This is the Security Center for the Island. We do have stations at the headquarters building in the main town and further Southwest with the main vehicle garage, but this is where the base of operations is. It is here where we monitor all of the freight coming in and out of the island; this is the main port of entry after all.” He smiled and looked amongst them. “Either way…”

He opened the front door for the group to enter the lobby of the building. The lobby wasn’t too large, and the group filled up most of the occupational space other than the chairs and a small table to the left of the room. Behind a curved desk was an older lady with greying long hair who smiled as they walked in. While the woman had an almost thin and lanky look to her, behind her cup of coffee was the welcome smile of a southern grandmother.

“Diane… This is the new group of Trainees.” Harold smiled at her and sort of waved in their direction to introduce them. 

“Howdy!” The woman lowered her cup and gave a little wave. “It’s nice to meet y’all!”

The group all kind of said hello back.

“Now if you will excuse me, I have to finish the conference call that was going on before you guy’s landed. So I'll have Diane take you guys to the breakroom. .” Mr. Finch said in a bit of a rush. “I’ll be back in a little bit... Should only be a few minutes.”

As Mr. Finch left the room, Diane stood from her desk with a sigh, coffee still in hand. “Oh don’t mind him… He just loves to have me take care of all his work…” The woman laughed lightly, clearly joking. “Follow me… The break room is right down the hall.” She said as she walked around her desk into the hallway to behind the wall her desk was at. 

At the end of the hall towards the right was an open door that she led them too. Inside she stopped and turned to them. “Here y’all’s go. This spot should have any fixin’ y’alls need... If you need anything else I'll be right back there hunkered down at my desk with my coffee.’ She smiled and walked back down the hall; a rather quick introduction and exit.

The breakroom had quite an extensive catalog of snacks and drinks from US domestic and some local items from Costa Rica. On the other side of the room from the door, there was a pair of large sliding door refrigerators filled with all sorts of soda and cold snack foods like hard-boiled eggs and small wrapped sandwiches. Next to the fridges, there was a pair of coffee machines, an espresso machine, and a tea-pot station. On the other end of the counter was a wire rack full of sweets and other dry snacks along with a decent selection of oatmeal bowls and cereal boxes. Simply put: This place was loaded. Nicole had heard that the CEO’s motto was ‘spare no expense,’ but she had thought it was just corporate speak. This breakroom alone was better stocked than anywhere else she had seen, and she had toured the facilities of the Dallas Cowboys if that was any comparison. Most of them dropped their bags near the door and walked past the trio of tables and the several couches and lounge chairs to get a better look.

“Jesus Christ!” One of the others, Beck White from Northern Minnesota, exclaimed. “They have Vernors?” He said, pulling a green ginger ale can from one of the fridges. 

Nicole had heard of that brand before, apparently, it was a big deal in the states around the Great Lakes. She soon forgot all about what everyone else was doing when her eyes glazed across a clear bottle full of red liquid; her eyes sparkled slightly as she read the words: ‘Big Red.’

“Son of a bitch…” She muttered under her breath as she reached in and took one of the bottles and opened it. She took a mouthful of the sweetest bubble-gum flavored soda. It had been a while since she had gotten her hands on it and it was as good as it always had been. Once she had gotten over the surprise of finding one of her favorite sodas, she browsed the dry snack collection and grabbed two bags of Tato Skins, one regular, one barbeque flavored. With food to nibble on, she walked into the lounge area to one of the chairs that she could keep her back to the corner to watch the room. Not that she was paranoid, but it was how she was taught at a younger age by her father; If you can put your back to the wall and watch the ways in and out, do it. Its best to have as much situational awareness when possible.

Nothing much happened for the next half an hour or so. The group had spread out around the break room. Beck, Brian, and Tony had gathered around one of the tables and were talking about cars or something with some magazines. Dane and another new hire by the name James Booth were chatting it up standing around the coffee machines, and the other guy named Brandon Miller was quietly reading a book; the Lonesome Dove, by Larry Murtry no less. A bit of a dry read in Nicole’s opinion but she wasn’t one to judge.

Eventually, Mr. Finch returned to the group from his office. “Hey. Sorry about that, guys and gals. Your flight landed sooner than I was expecting… I thought I had more time to finish up that call.” He explained with an almost tired sigh. “So… If you all want to grab whatever food and drinks you want before you follow me down the hall we can go over all of your job debriefing.” 

The new hires didn’t take long to get up and around to join Mr. Finch as he escorted them down the hall to a conference room. Nicole followed close behind him with an unopened can of that Vernors soda that Beck was so excited about. In the conference room, there was already a man standing at the other end of the long conference table looking at an opened binder as everyone entered the room. The man looked a few years younger than Mr. Finch but held the same worn and serious sense about him.

“I’d like you all to meet Mike Stevens, the senior weapons master on the island.” Harold introduced the man to the group. “Mike… This is the new batch of security staff that just arrived a bit ago.”

“Nice to see you all made it here safe and sound.” Mr. Stevens smiled dryly and looked around at all of the new hires. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to meet you guys face to face later, but right now we need to get some bullshit out of the way. So have yourselves a seat and Harold and I will run you through this slideshow corporate says we have to do.”

As they sat down, Mr. Finch closed the door and dimmed the lights before Mr. Stevens began. Soon the only source of light was the beam of a projector mounted to the ceiling. 

“As Harold said a second ago: I’m Mike Stevens. I am the guy in charge of a good portion of keeping all of our equipment up in good condition. This includes pretty much all of the weapons, vests, and whatever security detail gear you all get to carry around. I also handle the maintenance schedules on the few dedicated vehicles that we have for our use only.” He explained. “I have been on this island just about as long as Mr. Finch so I know what you guys will deal with on a day to day basis. So if you have any questions you can bring them to me. If I am not present, then you can get ahold of Finch.” He paused for a second. “Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself…” 

He looked down and fumbled with a little remote. A picture swiped on the projector screen to show a pair of men in blue security uniforms, one was with a bulletproof vest and helmet while the other had only a utility belt and multi-pocket jacket. The words ‘InGen Security. Direct. Alert. Safe.’ were between the two people. The picture was only there for a few seconds before he shifted through several slides that had hardly any information on them.

“Something something, ‘welcome to Isla Sorna.’ Sorry. I hate these things.” Mr. Stevens shook his head disinterested as he stopped the projector on an outline of the island, detailed with locations and colored in sectors over most of the map. The majority of the map was highlighted in blue, whereas places around obvious locations and main routes were in a deep green. “Alright! Yeah. This is Isla Sorna. Your new home. Pretty much our job is to patrol, police, and protect all the facilities and personnel on this island from saboteurs, the elements, the wildlife, and themselves. We essentially are the Island’s Police.” He paused before pointing at the map with a finger in a waving motion. “Our main jurisdiction is up here in the green and the blue… We pretty much don’t go into the blue regions other than occasional trail scouting… But even then, any of you would be ride-alongs with maintenance trucks if you were out doing that.” The man paused to take a breath as he flipped slides. 

“What is in the blue region?” Tony dared ask.

Mr. Stevens jerked slightly at the question. “Excuse me?”

“Well, it’s most of the island.” Tony pointed out obviously. “So is it just an empty jungle island? Or did you guys find ancient aliens here or something…” Tony asked, seemingly almost trying to get a rise from the other guys.

Mr. Stevens turned to face them with a slight frown on his face. “Listen, kid... You can sit there and make jokes all you want, but you wouldn’t last a day out on the island.”

Tony was about to make a snarky remark when Mr. Finch spoke up. “It would be best to keep all questions for the end of our process here. Write them down if you must… You did all sign those waivers before you left the mainland.” He explained calmly. “Go on, Mike.”

Mr. Stevens lightly straightened himself before turning back to the board. “Anyway… So I was about to get into a bit of somehow even more boring things. Procedures and protocols…”

At this point, Nicole zoned out slightly. She paid as much attention as needed, but a lot of the things that he was going over were included with the hefty handbook that they had all sent out to them once they had signed their initial contracts. It was much like the mainland; so many little rules and laws and tips for everything. Covering everything from how long to allow compliance to the company speak of the ‘zero’ tolerance of everything, though this far from civilization she really doubted some of it was followed as well as the booklet had implied. Apparently she had somehow heard that the CEO of the entire company, Mr. John Hammond, lived on site. She would have to really gauge to feel the environment and what was really the means of staying in good standings. She was sort of brought back into full focus as Mr. Stevens was wrapping up a section actually talking about how security was supposed to handle vehicle pursuits of fleeing personnel.

“Now does anyone know what a ‘Pit’ maneuver is?” Mr. Stevens asked.

They all kind of nodded.

“Have any of you ever performed one or been in a vehicle on the receiving one?”

Nicole nodded alone.

Mr. Stevens kinda shot her a look. “Have you now?” 

“My father is law enforcement, sir. He taught me a lot growing up.” She answered.

“Probably cause he had nothing else going on,” Tony muttered low under his breath, getting a slight chuckle from Brian. “Probably some small-town cop.” He said to the other.

Nicole shot him a look to say something before she saw Mr. Finch leaned forward in his chair behind the two to correct them. “Her father is a Texas Ranger.” He said simply, shutting them up quickly. “Show some respect, boys… Please.” He spoke with a firm, yet somehow not fully scolding tone; like a disappointed father.

Mr. Stevens cleared his throat softly and continued. “We have a rotation here that cycles steadily around all of the facilities on the island so that our entire security staff can learn all the areas of Isla Sorna. There are a few very high-security posts in some places but those are usually manned by veteran security team members.” He explained with a sigh. “Now… If there is nothing else… That is it for this slide show… Do any of you have any questions?” He glanced around the room for a second. 

Dane raised his hand lightly. “What is in the ‘blue region?’?” He asked with the intent of stealing some of Tony’s thunder.

“Unfortunately that stuff is classified until later this evening. We have a few more things to go through before we tell you specifics.” Mr. Stevens answered and looked around once more. “Anything else? No? Alright. Cool. Now we can go do all of your firearm evaluation.”

Mr. Finch stood up with a sigh. “Well. As Mike just said, now that the orientation slideshow is done, he will take you further East to the firing range.” He explained. “I have to stay here and do some things… You got them from here, Mike?”

“Yup yup.” Mr. Stevens nodded. “Alright, kids… Come with me.”

Mr. Stevens quickly left the room and led the group back out the front doors of the building and back around towards the rear of the building to where the helicopter had landed. They loaded themselves into a gray M35a2 Troop Truck and soon were rumbling eastward. Tony, Brian, and James sat near the back and seemed a bit excited about riding in a military truck, though Nicole and the other two seemed less entertained by it; This was not Nicole’s first time riding in one of these M35’s, not by a long shot.

Dane had sat across from Nicole and had given her a curious look once they were going. “So a Texas Ranger, huh?” He asked.

“Yup.” Nicole nodded slightly, not entirely interested in conversation, but she didn’t mind a few questions.

“Does your family have a few other LEOs in it?” 

“Yeah… Grandparents on my dad’s side were all city cops… Few of my cousins too… but that’s it.” She answered, trying to give an attempt since he had been respectable so far.

“Cool…”

“Mhmm.”

“So if I may ask… Why did you take this job? Sounds like you would have had a good setup to be a cop too.”

Nicole kind of chuckled. “I have my reasons.”

Dane shrugged lightheartedly. “That’s fine enough I suppose. What did it in for you do you think?”

“Well…” Nicole exhaled dramatically, instinctively calming herself mid-conversation. “I hate people.” She chuckled a bit.

Dane nodded and chuckled with her. “Hey. I get that absolutely. I am going to miss the great ‘Alaskan Isolation.’”

“Well fuck that. You crazy bastards enjoy your cold too much.” Nicole waved her hand at him.

Dane laughed harder. “That we do… I am surprised I am not melting away down here in the tropics. I am sure it will hit me though.”

Nicole smiled slightly and shook her head.

“Well, either way… I am sure we will have plenty of private time on this island.”

“I hope so…” He sighed. “Anyway... Don’t let me bother you.” He said, nodding her and leaving her to herself.

The rest of the ride, while rather short, was uneventful. The truck came to a stop at a small fenced off complex. As they hopped out, they could see there was a pair of small buildings next to a single radio tower. Beyond the buildings were two perpendicular sections that looked like different styles of shooting ranges. One seemed to be a conventional series of shooting lanes, and the other looked like a tactical range. Before they could get too comfortable, Mr. Stevens was ordering them to follow him towards the ranges. They walked downhill to the shooting lanes and into a small covered area with several tables and racks set up with all sorts of guns, ammo, and shooting equipment. Nicole noticed that there were several M16 rifles in the racks with triangular front grips, at a glance she was pretty sure that they were Vietnam Era rifles. She hoped she could mess with one of those; she did rather love her guns, being from Texas and all. Mr. Stevens then had them all line up after giving them protective eyes and ears.

“Now I know that you guys have all done competency tests for InGen before coming here, but we have to do an in-house check to make sure that none of you lost yourselves from the flight and whatnot.” Mr. Stevens spoke loudly, pacing back and forth in front of the group. “Now behind me is just a set of basic straight-shooting lanes. The marks down the side of each of the lanes are for 10, 25, and 50 yards. We are not doing a super crazy evaluation of accuracy at this time, but rather a competency test. This is not a competition. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” The group replied as a whole.

“Now... These are the two more common weapons we staff our security with on the island.” Mr. Stevens said as he moved to a nearby table with a lineup of several similar weapons. He picked up a grey shotgun and presented the weapon towards them to see all the while keeping it pointed in a safe direction. “This is a Remington 1100 series,” he said loudly. “We have plenty of these in the armory for you guys to use. These are a Semi-Automatic shotgun. Meaning that for each pull of your booger pickers, you shoot one bullet. These have been modified to have a bolt release on the side of them just like an old Browning Auto 5. If you don’t know what a Browning Auto 5 is then I suggest you go back home and ask your parents why they failed at raising you right.” He said, smirking slightly.

Nicole hid a smirk from forming. She was reminded of her days in Basic, getting talked down to by drill instructors and such. She immediately figured that Mr. Stevens must have been one, or been very close to a few to have picked up this style of ‘educating.’ 

“Running these are simple as can be. Pull the bolt back and lock it open like so.” He said as he visually showed how it works. “You fill the tube with shells in here like every shotgun ever made after the turn of the century, and then you hit this button right here.” He lightly pushed the button on the side, releasing the bolt to loudly clamp closed. “This little button over here behind the trigger is the safety. Are you all following me, kids?” He asked, looking at them.

They again gave their ‘yes sir’s.

“Good! Now, before we go any further: if you are ever on duty in which you are in the populated or work areas like the lab facilities or the towns on the island you do not carry any firearm what-so-ever with a round in the chamber. If you are on a trail, perimeter, gate, or open patrol you can do whatever the hell you want as long as you do it safely.” Mr. Stevens explained quickly as he set the shotgun down on the table in exchange for one of the other weapons. He turned back to them as had had before but this time with one of the rifles. “Can anyone tell me what this is?”

“An M16, sir!” One of the new-hires answered excitedly.

“That is god-damn right!” Mr. Stevens shouted back. “This is a Colt M16A1. These are the main workhorse of our security teams. These ones specifically are the older ones, and while we are starting to get a few batches of the ‘neutered’ A2, we hand these out to everyone who can prove they can handle the weight of having a fully automatic machine gun. Have any of you shot or even held one of these things before?” He answered. 

There were a one or two nods no, but the rest of the new hires answered yes, Nicole included.

“Alright.” Mr. Stevens sighed dramatically. “As scary as these are they are not difficult to operate. They were designed to be a light rifle cartridge that was simple enough to train anyone old enough to beat off to become proficient in using them. They even let those crayon eating Marines use them, so you guys will be just fine.”

Nicole chuckled slightly at that.

“Now. These are as simple as the Remington I just showed you.” He assured them. “You take your magazine and you firmly put it in this hole down here in front of the trigger. Make sure it is firm or you will drop your magazine line an idiot, and no one wants that.” He explained, showing them with an empty magazine. “Once your magazine is firmly seated, you pull back the charging handle as such and then let it go.” He did so, but while he released the lever on the rear of the receiver, nothing seemed to happen. “Now what just happened was that, since the weapon and magazine are empty the bolt didn’t go forward. Just like the Remington, you have to go to the other side of the gun and hit this release button. That will drop the bolt forward.” He turned the gun around and did so; the bolt closed loudly as it clamped forward. “Do you all understand?”

Again they nodded.

“Good. On the side where your right thumb is will be the safety switch. There is Safe, Single Fire, and Full Auto. For starters I want you guys to only use single fire today. We will do an additional test at a later time to see if you guys can handle that. So that means if I see any of you fire in full auto or mishandle any of these Colts I will personally call Eugene Stoner down here to skin your asses! Do you all got that?!” He shouted to retain their attentiveness.

Once they had answered with another series of ‘yes sir’, he set the weapon down on the table and invited them all closer. He started everyone off by teaching and having them begin to load several dozens of magazines for the rifles while he continued to give them a lecture on what they needed to make sure of and tips on shooting better. Once they had loaded several magazines for everyone, he had them go set up several paper targets at various ranges. After everything was set up, Mr. Stevens instructed everyone to take one of the Remingtons and a few boxes of shotgun shells. 

“Now remember what I said before. Pull the bolt back, load, and then release the bolt. Turn your safeties off and take your time and get to know these guys.” Mr. Stevens instructed them as he stepped back from the lanes. “If any of you need help, but the safety on and set the weapon down with the barrel facing downrange. I’ll be right over.” He paused as everyone visible got situated. “Range is hot! Feel free to shoot, kids!” He yelled.

Nicole had taken the furthest lane to the right, wanting to keep at least one of her sides free of other people. She slid a pair of gloves out of her pocket and put them on quickly and opened the box of shotgun shells. Light load three-inch slugs. She hummed as she loaded the shotgun in her hands until it was full. She pressed the bolt release and readied herself to shoot. Flipping the safety off, she pulled the shotgun against her shoulder and leveled the ring sights down range towards one of the 25-yard markers on her lane. 

When she pulled the trigger, the barrel lifted up and the weapon kicked back slightly against her as the slug sailed down range towards her target. The gun had been a little jarring for a second to her; while she had shot plenty of shotguns in her life, it had been years since she had fired shotgun slugs. These were lighter loads and paired with the cushiony rubber buttstock pad, it was nothing for her, just a tad jumpier than she initially expected. She paused for a second to reposition herself better and then continued to send round after round downrange.

After a while, she had fired several boxes of shotgun slugs, and at 25 shells per box, she had lost count after a hundred or so. Her shoulder was beginning to get a tad sore but nothing serious. Sustained firing with any shotgun always sort of sucked the morning after. By that time she had noticed that a few of the others were now firing the rifles. Mr. Stevens had been going around and swapping them out for the M16 rifles as he saw fit. While she waited for him to come to her lane, she had been reliably pounding one of the steel plate targets out at 50 yards with 12 gauge slugs. She had caught her groove with the loads and shotgun and was just enjoying herself. Eventually, Mr. Stevens tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

“How are you holding up down here, Walker??” He asked loudly over the noises of the range.

She gave him a firm thumbs up and nod.

“You’re doing a hell of a job down here with that 12 Gauge.”

“Thank you, sir!” She answered.

“Are you ready for the M16?”

“Yes please.” 

“Alright. Let me get that.” He said, taking the shotgun from her carefully and setting on a nearby rack before bringing back one of the M16A1s to her. He handed it to her and then set a box of loaded magazines next to her on her lane table. “Enjoy yourself. Remember! No Full Auto!” He instructed again and tapped her shoulder once again, letting her know to continue on.

Nicole took a second to inspect the rifle. While she had seen plenty of A1 rifles, she had only fired the A2. They were extremely similar, however, the M16A2 was the replacement for the generation 1 Vietnam M16 rifles. The biggest drawback, especially shared heavily by military service members, was the removal of full-auto capability. It was the military’s attempts to make the weapons more accurate, by taking the power from the user and only firing in bursts. It worked in the field, but the lack of laying large volleys of rifle rounds was a very missed feature of the M16. In short, she would do her best to not flip the ‘giggle’ switch on. 

Stay professional, Nicole. She thought. Calm down. It’s only one of the most exciting rifles you haven’t played with.

She exhaled to calm herself before she began to fire quick single fire shots. After a magazine or two to get reacquainted with the M16 platform, she was building up speed as she threw rounds very controlled and tightly grouped even down to the 50-yard plates. These rifles absolutely excelled at that range and had very little recoil compared to other guns. For her, it was a breeze, and she very much enjoyed the many magazines she had to waste. After a good bit of time, she felt another tap on her shoulder. Once again it was Mr. Stevens.

“Sir?” She lowered the gun on safe and looked back at him.

“Where did you learn to shoot, Walker?” He asked with great interest.

“United States Army, Sir!” She said proudly.

Mr. Stevens smirked slightly. “I figured.” He nodded. “Good to see more vets here, ma’am.”

Nicole nodded slightly at him.

“We are going to stop and reload soon. So finish up over here.”

“Of course!”

“Carry on! De Oppresso Liber!” He smiled and let her be for a bit longer. 

Once she had used most of the magazines in the box next to her, Mr. Stevens stopped everyone and had them return to the tables in the back of the firing lanes to go over some things but mostly to reload the magazines of the M16s for more shooting.

“You guys all shoot pretty good… I have to admit it.” Mr. Stevens said, nodding his head slightly as he stuffed cartridge after cartridge into the magazine in his hand. “What did you think of the shotgun slugs?”

“They hurt...” Brian grumbled lightly.

Nicole kind of agreed.

Mr. Stevens chuckled. “And those are the low recoil ones. You guys will be carrying the full power load slugs when out and about.”

“Why are they standard-issue, sir?” Nicole spoke up, genuinely curious.

Mr. Stevens hummed slightly. “You will know in a few hours… But I can tell you that we have some very large and potentially dangerous game on this island. If anything should happen, we want to make sure we have the heaviest hitting stuff to put whatever down should the need arise.” 

“What else would we be handling besides this?” She wondered aloud.

“Well… Nothing terribly crazy.” He shrugged. “We have a few 7.62 NATO weapons, as well as some African game rifles for the senior security members… Other than that? We have a couple of old Browning M2s and ‘Light 50’s locked up in some spots… but those are for if the reds decide to invade South America I suppose.” He chuckled.

Nicole hummed. Light 50s?? Jesus Christ. Maybe they do have Godzilla here. She thought.

“Speaking of large game…” Tony started up. “I’ve done plenty of hunting towards the Rockies… You know, I could teach you some things, Nicole.” He offered randomly. It was getting old even for the other trainees, evident by a communal exhale.

“And you think your knowledge of American big game hunting is going to help on this island?” Nicole said, finally giving a retort after listening to this guy try to ‘help’ her with everything for a week.

Her question seemed to make Tony pause for just a second before he smiled. “Well, you know. I was just saying I have a lot of experience handling guns like this stuff… Save for the M16… I could help you!”

“No thanks.” Nicole answered firmly. “I’m good.”

Tony huffed and went back to his magazine. “Just tryin’ to help you actually know how to shoot… But suit yourself.”

“That’s fuggin rich…” Dane said boldly in retaliation to the rude person, but before he could speak farther, Mr. Stevens raised his hand at them.

Mr. Stevens cleared his throat and looked over at Nicole “Do you want to run the tactical range, Walker?”

Nicole shot a quick look at him surprised. She nodded despite the unexpected request.

“Then grab two magazines and load up one of each of the guns.” He told her with a confident smile. “Go show them how it’s done.” 

She didn’t need to be told twice. She quickly took two of the magazines and loaded up an M16 and one of the Remingtons from one of the nearby racks. Once she had gotten everything ready to go, she moved to the starting spot for the tactical range to wait.

“Alright! Everyone get your ears back on and get your asses over here to watch.” Mr. Stevens ordered. As everyone shuffled over, he took position by a switch on a nearby wall. Some dim red lights started flashing and a few basic targets in the obstacle range began to move back and forth. “Range is hot! Everyone watch yourselves!” He ordered loudly. “Walker! At the signal! Show them how us grunts get it done!” 

With a shotgun in hand and the rifle over her shoulder, Nicole readied herself at the start line of the tactical range. She stared down the several targets moving back and forth across and from behind some basic plywood structures. Unlike the others with the security group, she by far had leagues of experience over any of them, and while it wasn’t fully professional, with Mr. Steven’s permission she would take this time to show off her capabilities with action. With the shotgun angled down in her firm grip, she widened her feet and leaned forward, readying herself. 

Four left. Six center. Cover left. Three right. Four rear. She silently calculated to herself, grinning through controlled breaths. She had run hundreds of similar drills in the service and at home with her father; she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Go get’em, Tony Montana!”

An electronic bell sounded, and Nicole instantly snapped up the barrel of the shotgun at the closest center targets. With moving feet and taunt muscle memory, she fired the gun quickly as she moved towards the small mock brick wall two or so meters towards her forward left. With each blast of the shotgun, she swung the barrel, toggling quickly through the moving targets from left-center, and towards the right. By the time she had reached the wall, she had hit four of the center targets, and all three of the right targets. Each of her shots had hit their mark and the shotgun was now empty. She quickly slipped the shotgun over her back and pulled the M16A2 off her back. Quickly racking the charging handle, she spun left around the end of the wall and fired short bursts of automatic fire into each of the four left targets before switching to fire several single fire two shots at the rear targets in the back. She fired the remaining bullets into one of the last targets in the center as it slid on its track out from behind a mockup window. Ducking back into cover, she reloaded the M16 quickly, the empty magazine had barely hit the ground before she firmly smacked her second magazine into the weapon. She released the bolt with her left thumb and swung the barrel up at the final target in the center just as it slid out from behind a torn tarp. With a trained grip, she held the trigger, firing the entire magazine of the weapon into the center of the final target. 

Despite the mag dump, her grouping was decent due to experience and her experience of recoil management. Once the weapon was emptied, she tilted the gun towards the left in her hands to make sure the chamber was clear of bullets. She pulled the magazine out of the weapon and carefully slipped it back over her shoulder and turned back to the group. While Mr. Stevens wouldn’t show too much excitement, it was obvious that even he had been impressed. As for the other’s in the trainee group, they had been left standing there in shock as they quickly realized that Nicole had a much tighter grip on what she was doing than they had thought. Unfortunately, she also would look past them to see a man who looked fresh out of a safari tour leaning against the rail that overlooked the range with a visible scowl. 

Ignoring the new person for the moment, she would take her victory. She had figured she only had missed three or so rounds overall, so she was at least happy with herself. She checked the range real quick before picking up the first empty magazine she had dropped in the dirt before walking back to the range line.

“You really want to help?” She smirked towards Tony. “Then how about you load this for me.” She nodded slightly as she tossed the empty magazine right at Tony, who barely would catch the magazine.


End file.
